Shami Beni wants his students to know that regardless of their musical background or abilities, they can use technology to make songs and remixes that set the stage.

As part of Beni’s mixing music class, students are introduced to the world of music production using the contemporary music software GarageBand. They learn how to create bops or transitions as they adjust volumes and tempos along the way.

“A lot of times, schools will have a music appreciation class, which has its place, but having interactive classes where you’re able to not only learn about music, but also create music, I think is really important,” said Beni, a member of the arts faculty. “I want students to be not only creative, but I want them to take charge of their own education.” 

The mixing music class provides a project-based, hands-on experience in loop-based music production, Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) basics, audio recording, digital signal processing and effects, live and post-recording mixing, and digital mastering. 

For the final project in class, students could select one of several options, from adding a score to a movie scene, to creating a podcast on the topic of their choosing, to producing a hit song.

Tyson Brown ’26, from Chambersburg, PA, selected a scene from Godzilla vs. Kong because he wanted to create music for a fight scene.

“I thought it’d be really interesting to overlay that and put my own remix to it, rather than what it was before,” Brown said. He used strings, woodwinds, and brass to create the sound he wanted. “I’m not much of an orchestra musician myself, so that has been a challenge, finding what goes well together and picking up the right loops that sound the best together. Another challenge I had was matching the kind of tone of the music with the actual scene itself, so knowing when to add more instruments and knowing when to take them out.”

Amanda Liechti ’28 and Blanca Coronado Pomares ’27 created a podcast comparing the food from their countries to the food they’ve tried in America. Liechti, a 9th-grader, is from Denmark, and Coronado Pomares, a 10th-grader, is from Spain.

“Blanca and I are making a podcast about Spanish and Danish food,” Liechti said. “We are telling you about the main course, and the sides, and the desserts, and we are comparing it to America.”

For the podcast, they learned how to adjust the levels of their voices and how to put the podcast together from start to finish, Coronado Pomares said. “We learned how to cut it, and edit it, and then add music to it.” 

Canaan Gill ’28 of Stirling, NJ, chose to create a hit song, another one of the options.

“I’ve been trying to listen to different things to see how they sound together just so I can integrate different sounds from different songs into my own song.”

Because the musical tastes of the students in the class differ, discussions can be lively.

“It’s a really fun class,” Gill said. “This class is about making music, but the conversations I have here with my fellow classmates are always amazing.”

See the class in action.